The amazingly unlikely true story of how a grumpy old man and lifelong bachelor won the love of a beautiful young woman and started a family – and all by writing a curmudgeonly blog about his lonely journey to the grave.

Now who would have predicted that?

Sunday, 21 March 2010

The best bit

15st 7lb, 1.5 units. When writing yesterday’s despatch on a not altogether brilliant week, I clearly failed to recognize two things.

First, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. My mind turns naturally to a court case recently featured in The Journal, about a “holiday from hell” in some supposed luxury hotel in the Dominican Republic (a concept you might have thought that any savvy traveller would instantly mark down as oxymoronic) in which the only people who ate well were the mice, dogs and birds infesting the kitchen and restaurant, while those guests who were daft enough to brave the fly-infested buffet table ended up with doses of amoebic dysentery so severe that they ended up shitting in the swimming pool while waiting their turn for a ride in the ambulance.

Yes, it was certainly a whole lot better than that.

Secondly, I forgot to mention that one of the absolute high points of my whole life occurred yesterday morning when I staggered downstairs into the dining room, feeling like death imperfectly warmed up, and The Baby looked up from his breakfast, calmly nodded at me and observed “Dadda”.

Now, through the minor miracle of the baby monitor, we know that The Baby has been spending a lot of time alone in his cot rehearsing for this moment by repeating “Dadadadadadadadadadadada” to himself, only at considerably greater length. But when he has been invited to repeat the performance in front of his proud parents, he has always just looked at us blankly and said “Guck”. This is, I am assured by someone who pretends to expertise in these matters, a very unusual noise for a baby to make. On the other hand, they do tend to copy the sounds they hear most often, so it could well be a near miss for … well, I don’t really need to spell it out, do I? Presumably it will soon develop into “Guck ogg”. Though, in fairness to me, Mrs H did reckon after my running commentary on motoring standards during our journey up to Northumberland that, if his first word was to be the one he had heard most often, it would probably be “Twat”.

Be that as it may, The Baby is now officially talking as well as crawling. Woo hoo. I am now devoting much time to asking the question “Who do you prefer? Dadda or Mamma? Come on, you can only say one of them. It really can’t be that hard.”

1 comment:

About Me

Keith Hann is a serial quitter: professionally as a historian (the last days of the British Empire), then an investment analyst (the last days of the British food industry) and finally as a financial public relations consultant (the last days of pretty much any company that was deluded enough to hire him). In each case he packed it in just when there might have been some chance of making a few quid out of it. Then there is his personal life score: engagements 4, marriages 1. For the last few years Keith has been indulging himself as a hobby journalist. It seems unlikely that he will ever make a living out of this. And if he ever shows signs of making it Big, his resignation will be going straight into the post. In November 2007 Keith started blogging (a) to take the mickey out of the genre, (b) because a misguided friend told him that it was the ideal way to secure his Big Break as a writer, and (c) to chronicle the final days of a dying breed of solitary English curmudgeon. Nothing remarkable about any of that, except that it somehow convinced a beautiful, funny young woman that she had finally met the man of her dreams. As we always say Up North, there’s nowt so queer as folk.